


Ser Pounce, First of His Name

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Boots (Mention), Dragons (Mention), Gen, Lady Whiskers (Mention), Maester Scurry (OC), Qyburn (Mention), The Others (Mention), Tommen (Mention)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 16:42:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3857734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who remains after winter arrives, all have lost the game, and the Iron Throne sits empty? Epilogue to "A Dream of Spring"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ser Pounce, First of His Name

**SER POUNCE**

* * *

Ash and snow fell silently into the Great Hall.

The Others, the strange men-not-men who smelled of nothing, feared cats. They took horses, dogs, even rats, alive or dead, but not cats. And they feared Maester Scurry, screamed their horrific screams when they first encountered him in the Red Keep, because he was undead by means wrong and unnatural even for them. Ser Pounce could smell it, too, the strange, sick odor that emanated from the headless rat that Qyburn had resurrected years ago.

Maester Scurry now sat at his side, the metal cage he wore on a collar that replaced his head pointed toward the Iron Throne, knowing but not seeing. The throne loomed empty, all who hoped to claim it probably gone from the world.

The Others, most of them, at least, Ser Pounce thought, were now dead. And Spring would eventually take the rest. They’d made it as far south as King’s Landing before a great battle had raged in the sky above. Enormous winged beasts, with screams louder than the men-not-men, had arrived from over the Narrow Sea. For days the sky burned.

Ser Pounce had watched the battle from a cold crevice in the Red Keep’s arcades, hungry and anxious. The King, his service, and the rest of the court had fled when the three winged beasts were spotted on the horizon. He assumed they had been burned up with the rest of the inhabitants of the city, or fallen victim to the legions of men-not-men as they marched South or the dragons as they flew North. He could see the charred bodies and melted stone, all twisted and deformed, littering the streets. It was hard enough telling one man from another as they lived, wholly impossible when they were nothing but black bones.

Little Tommen had been so lost. In the final hours before he departed, he had clung to Ser Pounce, squeezed him much too hard, and wailed like an animal. He loved the little boy king, in his own way, but a cat’s duty was first to himself and then to his kind. The men who thought themselves the masters of the feline race were often a distant thought. But he bonded with the boy as a kitten, and although he had grown up, he shared the terror of youth with the lost king. Still, he mourned Boots and Lady Whiskers far more.

There were other cats in the city. Soon he would send Maester Scurry to lead them to the granary, which the men-not-men had not bothered to enter or disturb. They didn’t eat. And the winged beasts only ate flesh. Ser Pounce had been to the granary earlier in the day, heard the scratching and chirps of the rodents still inside. The cats needed to eat, and if the rats were kept under control, they could all live for a long time on the vast granary stores.

The humans had been so foolish. It was just as well they were gone.

Ser Pounce stood, held his tail high, and approached the base of the throne; Maester Scurry sensed his advance and trailed behind.

There might be men left, somewhere. They might some day come back to the city, try to claim the Red Keep and the Iron Throne, busy themselves with the concerns of gold and coin and power and swords. For now, though, there was no King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm.

There was only Ser Pounce. And the Iron Throne was a magnificent perch for a cat.

So he climbed.


End file.
